


coin flip

by days4daisy



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Kissing, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Introspection, Lamplighter's Delightful Porn Collection, M/M, Referenced Canon Background Character Death, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:29:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27584777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/pseuds/days4daisy
Summary: Lamplighter looks like a man, not a monster. He looks like a man Frenchie would fuck if he didn’t know better.
Relationships: The Frenchman/The Lamplighter (The Boys)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	coin flip

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celluloid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloid/gifts).



> It was so nice to write for you, celluloid. I was very happy to see that someone else liked this one week rare pair! Hope you have a lovely Yuletide <3

There’s not much to say or do right after leaving Sage Grove. Later, they'll deal with politicians and plans to expose Vought. Parade out their new star witness and blow the lid off Compound V. The Seven. Homelander. Even Mr. Edgar himself.

But today, after Sage Grove, they trudge down to the pawnshop basement in silence. All except their new house guest, who takes in the shit hole with a sighed, “Of-fucking-course.”

Butcher, Starlight, and Hughie aren't back by the time they return. There was an accident outside the hospital. Hughie got banged up pretty bad, but he’ll make it through. Butcher and Starlight have him, they’ll be back soon.

There’s nothing to do but wait for whatever will come next. Once upon a time, Frenchie appreciated rare down times. Between keeping tabs on Jay and Cherie and working for Mallory, quiet nights didn’t happen often. And if they were too quiet, it meant something was about to go wrong.

Frenchie didn’t understand ‘wrong’ until he ditched his post for 30 minutes and came back to children on fire.

Since then, Frenchie hates down time. He hates quiet nights. He hates any opportunity to _think_. The longer the pause, the more he itches to fill it with anything or anyone available. He hoped for M.M., but the big guy’s mood goes surly after the afternoon rendezvous with Mallory. As soon as they get back, M.M. crouches in front of the dollhouse for his little girl. The tension in his shoulders says anyone who interrupts him has a broken nose coming, or worse.

Kimiko has unwound some from seeing Stormfront a few hours ago, but she’s still on edge. She stalks to her dark corner of the basement, and Frenchie gives her the space he promised.

It leaves Frenchie alone with _him._

Frenchie has no intention of navigating this minefield tonight. Not even after asking Mallory to spare the animal’s life. The animal who’s a man. A man who didn’t know what he was doing. Who would have stopped if Frenchie hadn’t left. If Frenchie hadn’t saved a brother, a love, who died a few months later anyway.

Frenchie turns to other company instead. His back room is sparse, but it has enough. He’s on auto-pilot, powder on the sterilized metal table. Cut to perfection with the blade. One quick breath, sharp and sudden. It hits his bloodstream fast. He’s been indulging himself more lately, more than he should. But immediately, the edge is off the day. The flickering lights glaze over.

He does a second line for good measure. The rush feels so good, he doesn’t hear the footsteps at first.

“Med kit bomb makes sense now.” It’s _him_ talking at his back, so close that Frenchie feels the heat off his body. He’s warmer than a person should be, like a shower one notch too hot. Frenchie thinks of Madam Mallory. He thinks of those kids.

“What do you want?” Frenchie hisses.

“What you’re having,” Lamplighter says. He comes around to the other side of the table, forcing Frenchie to see him. He's the same as before - no cloak, no torch, no mask. No monster. Only a man.

Frenchie flashes a biting smile. “And what makes you think I’m sharing, huh?”

“You are,” Lamplighter answers. “You owe me.”

Frenchie’s incredulous laugh sounds like a yelp from a kicked dog. “I owe _you_?”

He jumps when Lamplighter’s fist hits the table. The powder scatters but doesn’t fall to the floor. “You owe me,” Lamplighter repeats. He leans across the metal, forces Frenchie to see his eyes under the flickering bulb. They look like pain. Frenchie hates his eyes more than he hates the man. But not as much as he hates himself.

He steps back from the table - stutter-stumbles - and waves a permissive hand at what’s left.

It’s not Lamplighter’s first time, or second, or third. Frenchie knows the practice in the expert fingers that take up Frenchie’s blade. The self-assured hunch of his body over the table, holding down his other nostril to get the most he can. Lamplighter’s back shifts under his t-shirt. It’s been a long time since Frenchie played spectator to someone else at his table. Watched strong shoulders point out under thin shirt fabric. Frenchie thinks of Jay, and his stomach twists. He thinks of Cherie too, and how he left them in that church.

He thinks, and thinks, until his hands and forehead are against the wall. Frenchie's heart squeezes in his chest. The only thing he cares about is the sound of his own breaths. In, out. In, out.

Lamplighter says something that sounds suspiciously like an offer to watch porn. “Or...fuck. Whatever, man.” Then, he walks out. Stumbles, actually, and Frenchie manages to lift his head. Three lines gone, but Frenchie only remembers him taking one.

“Prick,” he mumbles. He doesn't feel the word leave his tongue let alone the emotion that should come with it. Frenchie squints at his own hands pressed flat against the wall. The electric light flickers over his skin, turns it blue-green like mold.

Frenchie scrapes up the remains from the table like a surgeon at work. With the powder stored away, he sways from the room without much mind on where he wants to go. To wash his face. Or try talking to Kimiko again. Not to _him_ \- but that’s exactly where he winds up.

Lamplighter is the type of asshole who takes up two couch cushions with the wide spread of his legs. He sits across from an old box TV they managed to get wired up to a DVD player. Guttural moans waft from the ancient speakers. Frenchie glances at the screen. Black Noir has a pretty petite woman bent, ass-high, over an office desk. Why an office? Is it Black Noir’s desk?

Rolling his eyes, Frenchie crashes on the other side of the couch. The last place he wants to be is watching god awful Seven porn next to _him_. But Frenchie’s brain is too high to come up with any better alternatives. The beat up sofa squawks under his added weight.

Lamplighter follows the activity on the screen like he’s watching a real life murder trial. Every few seconds, he flicks his metal lighter open and shut. The sound makes Frenchie’s skin crawl.

He flips through the other DVD boxes stacked on the table in front of them. Deep Does it in the Blowhole. Queen Maeve, Pleasure Slave. Starlight Rides the A-Train.

Frenchie displays the last disc in the stack. Lamplighter: Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love. “What's this? You’d rather watch Black Noir’s cock than your own?”

Lamplighter sighs towards the ceiling. He’s slumped down, back dipped between the top and bottom cushions. “Doesn’t even look like me.” He points an accusing finger at the DVD case. Lamplighter is right on this one thing, the actor doesn’t even have the right hair color. He’s too skinny, too young in the face. “But whatever,” Lamplighter adds. “You want it, go ahead.” He flicks his lighter again, open and shut.

“Who knew you were such a pushover, huh?” It’s not light-hearted enough to be a joke, but posing the question at all feels like a shift.

Lamplighter glances at him. He doesn’t look surprised exactly, but there’s something thoughtful to his expression. Frenchie doesn’t like Lamplighter looking at him. He doesn’t like the lighter that Lamplighter continues to flick either. Like he has no clue what that sound means.

Frenchie stands stiffly from the couch and swaps out the discs.

He returns to the sofa with a jug of vodka. There’s no good stuff in this basement, and right now money is a luxury. Forget a brand name, this vodka sells in a plastic tub. The label has long since worn off, and the bottle is still half-full. It’s a wonder anyone who’s tried it hasn’t had their stomachs corrode from the inside.

Frenchie sets the jug between them like a barrier. Lamplighter looks from it to him. His eyes are shinier than usual from the cocaine. Frenchie hates that he notices and takes the first gulp. Diabolical, as Butcher would say.

Lamplighter: Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love begins with an avalanche in a random ski town. An attractive, and buxom, brunette gets caught in the deluge. It looks bleak for two seconds until the fake Lamplighter arrives - cloak, mask, staff. The snow melts away. So does the brunette’s winter jacket, exposing an off-the-shoulder sweater with a peek of hot pink bra.

“I hate skiing,” Lamplighter mutters.

The scene moves to the inside of a cabin, and a roaring fireplace thanks to Lamplighter. It doesn’t take long for clothes to come off. The brunette’s are first, of course. A cloaked Lamplighter leads her in a hot pink bra and thong to bed. There, she's happy to split open Lamplighter’s robe and put her mouth to work.

Beside Frenchie, Lamplighter takes up the vodka jug. He gags after a swallow. “Fuck, man.” Lamplighter coughs, fist shoved against his lips. “How the hell are you not dead?”

“You don’t have to drink it,” Frenchie mumbles. “No one has a gun to your head.”

Lamplighter smiles wryly. “Not now, anyway.” He takes another swallow, and gags again. But he doesn’t complain about the taste this time.

Frenchie eyes him from the safety of his side of the couch. Legs splayed out. Eyes glassy. Warm enough for Frenchie to feel even from a few cushions over. His casual clothes do more favors for him than the hospital scrubs. Or the majorette outfit Vought paraded him around in.

Lamplighter looks like a man, not a monster. He looks like a man Frenchie would fuck if he didn’t know better.

“You’re giving me murder eyes,” Lamplighter comments. He lolls his head to the side, looking up at Frenchie. “Do it if you want. Like I told your boss, you’d be doing me a favor.”

“Because I owe you, is that it?” Frenchie grumbles. “You’ve got my good stash in you now. And you’re here. You’re safe. You’re going to stay alive until you do what Madam Mallory tells you to. I don’t owe you. Not one goddamn thing.”

Frenchie isn’t sure what kind of response he expects. Lamplighter making use of his lighter, maybe. But he just nods and returns to the screen. He also scoops up the vodka and downs another mouthful. No gag this time, just a grimace when he thrusts the jug back down.

On screen, Burnin’ Love Lamplighter opens up his robes. For such a slight actor, Frenchie has to give credit. The man is well-hung, more so after a proper fluffing, wet from the brunette’s mouth and ready for more. Frenchie grabs the vodka and downs a shot straight from the jug.

When he puts it down, Lamplighter is looking at him. Lamplighter’s eyes have a mournful curve to them. He looks pathetic, even more than when he was a circus clown in the Seven.

Lamplighter shifts on the couch, closing their distance with the vodka between them. Frenchie wonders if steam would rise off Lamplighter’s skin if he were to douse him with what’s left of the jug. His warmth is uncomfortable; Frenchie feels it under his clothes.

“What are you looking at me for?” Frenchie asks.

“I don’t know.” Lamplighter glances at the screen. On screen, the film’s heroine begs quite loudly for more. “All this time,” he says, “I thought...but you’re not…”

Frenchie folds surly arms over his chest. “You shouldn’t blow if you don’t remember how to use your words,” he grumbles.

Lamplighter’s next look is sharp as a brand new knife. “Maybe I don’t need words,” he says, the final ‘s’ dragged out like a snake in the grass. He flips the lighter open, an audible click. Frenchie’s heart jumps into his throat, beating hard enough to constrict his lungs.

A small part of him, very small, wants Lamplighter to do it. Frenchie dreamed it many times, himself in bed instead of those children. Wished it was him in some dark, hopeless way. It would have been better for everyone.

Frenchie lifts the edge of his t-shirt, shows the glock strapped in his waist holster. “I don’t either,” he says.

Lamplighter’s eyes follow his hands down. He sees the gun. He also sees Frenchie’s skin - the slim cut of his abdomen, the easy curve of his side. His gaze rises with a lick of his lips. Frenchie thinks of him bent over the metal table in his workshop. The strong point of his shoulder blades under his t-shirt.

“Is this what the porn is for?” Frenchie asks. “You need your dick to distract you from all the bullshit you’ve done, huh?”

A cynical breath jumps off Lamplighter’s lips. “Worse things out there. What do you use?”

It’s a fair shot. Frenchie uses drugs. Booze. Weapons. Plots to kill supes.

“Besides.” Lamplighter turns his skepticism towards the screen. His actor stand-in has his partner Y-legged, back arched and head tossed back in a pose of abject pleasure. “You try parading around like a carnival sideshow. Whole thing’s a joke. The porn’s the best part.” He nods towards the screen. The lighter flicks open and shut.

Frenchie glares at the screen too, where torrid lines spill out like, “Oooh, baby, you light my fire!” He hates this day, and he hates _him._

Frenchie scoops up the vodka; the jug glugs as he swallows from it.

Before today, at least Frenchie had a villain. Before today, at least Frenchie could blame someone more than himself. But the monster is only a man with sad eyes who watches bad porn. Every pore in his body wants to scream.

He thinks about what it would feel like to be set on fire. How it would be to experience every molecule in his body burning.

When he sets the jug down, Lamplighter grabs his forearm. Frenchie jolts in surprise, twisting to the side. Perfect for Lamplighter to invade his space with all that _warmth_. Lamplighter feels like a furnace crowding him on the couch. Their lips are together, and Frenchie’s open in surprise. He’s shocked at first, hands hovering in awkward confusion over Lamplighter’s legs.

His shock becomes anger.

Frenchie shoves first, he’s sure of it. From there, his adrenaline shoots up and everything becomes a blur. They’re off the sofa, fists in each other’s clothes. Pain shoots up Frenchie’s back when he’s pushed against the wall behind the ancient television. Pushed by a supe, he should be through the damn wall and falling out the other side. Lamplighter is toying with him. The thought makes Frenchie furious.

His spine grinds against the wall as they grapple. Frenchie squeezes the acid burn on Lamplighter's arm hard enough to get a hiss of discomfort. He gets Lamplighter’s forearm across his neck for the trouble. Frenchie’s lungs burn for air, he struggles dizzily. It hurts, and it’s what he wants. He knows as he yanks on Lamplighter’s shirt hard enough to rip the fabric open. Lamplighter’s fevered warmth bleeds into his own. Sweat beads across his brow and forms in the small of his back.

The lighter is in Lamplighter’s pocket. It grinds against Frenchie’s thigh.

Frenchie grabs a fist full of Lamplighter’s hair when he’s kissed again. He yanks, and Lamplighter growls. It’s enough space for Frenchie to spit, “Not here.”

Time sprints off again. Moans from the television fade into the background as they maneuver down the hallway. There’s more pushing and bruising. Frenchie’s hip cracks against the door handle to his room. He shuts the door with Lamplighter’s body, shoving what’s left of his tattered shirt off. The bandages on his left shoulder have blood soaking through. Lamplighter rips Frenchie’s shirt over his head so rough that his neck aches.

The rest of the room falls victim to the same treatment. Frenchie’s body hits open sections of wall. Lamplighter knocks against the table, making the metal legs scrape out of place. He kisses Frenchie so hard that Frenchie's lungs ache as much as his mouth.

They freeze at a knock on the door, Frenchie pinned against the far wall. M.M.’s voice wafts from the outside hall. “Frenchie, you good in there?”

Every inch of Frenchie’s body is shaking. He tries to force his voice out, swallows hard, and manages words on the second try. “Oui. Everything is fine.”

There’s a long pause on the other end. The only sound Frenchie registers is Lamplighter’s ragged breaths against his ear.

Finally, M.M. again. His voice is lower than before, and more serious. “You sure you’re good?”

“I’m good,” Frenchie says. He forces his voice to steady, closes his eyes to concentrate on speaking. “I am.”

Another long pause before M.M. relents. “Alright, man,” he says. Even with a closed door between them, Frenchie hears the sound of M.M.’s heavy boots retreating down the hall.

M.M. leaves Frenchie alone with Lamplighter’s exhales on his ear. With his shirt off, he feels warmer, pulsing heat with Frenchie wedged against the wall. Lamplighter pulls back to look at him. “ _Are_ you good?” he asks.

The question turns Frenchie’s blood hot again. He manages to push Lamplighter far enough to get a breath away from the warmth of his skin. “What do you care?” he asks.

Lamplighter hefts a single shoulder. “I don’t fucking know,” he grumbles. He has a hand jammed in his pocket. Not enough room to flick the lighter, but Frenchie can picture his fingers on the surface. Touching it as reverently as a religious artifact.

“Stop it,” Frenchie hisses. At Lamplighter’s look, he keeps going before he can stop himself. “Stop fucking _stroking_ it like some goddamn sex toy. You want to use it so bad? Go ahead.”

His fists connect with the table, clangs of metal filling up the room. Frenchie feels himself shaking; his fists are so tight that his fingers dig into his palms. His pulse seems to throb through every inch of his body, from between his temples to the end of his big toe.

When he’s turned, the edge of the table catches his back. Frenchie braces a hand on the metal surface to keep himself upright. This kiss is different; still hard, still assertive. But there’s patience to it different from the frenetic angry sprint that found them back in this room. Frenchie hooks a hand in the front of Lamplighter’s pants. Their bodies push into each other, and Frenchie feels him - hard under the fabric. But a different shape is missing. He glances over Lamplighter’s shoulder. His lighter sits abandoned on a back shelf.

Huffing, Frenchie wrenches hands back to unlace his waist holster. He drops his glock in the center of the table. Lamplighter’s mouth twitches up at a corner. Frenchie bites the look off his lips so he doesn’t have to see it.

By the time Frenchie’s mouth is free again, his chest is burning for a break. He pulls out from under Lamplighter’s weight. His body grew accustomed to Lamplighter’s temperature. Separated, the room feels cold, nipping at his torso.

He motions back in Lamplighter’s direction. “I’m not doing this,” he says. His heart rate is coming down from its race. Frenchie feels more naked without his gun than he does without his shirt. He wonders if Lamplighter feels the same without his lighter.

“Right.” The word comes out slow and cynical. “I’m not either.” Lamplighter leans against the table’s edge. Even with whatever supe healing he has, Frenchie sees the bruises he’s left on Lamplighter’s arms and sides. It gives him some satisfaction, especially given what he himself must look like.

Frenchie shrugs. “You can finish off with your movies.” He nods towards the door.

Lamplighter looks about as interested in the suggestion as Frenchie would. Instead, he heads back to the far wall and surprises Frenchie by sitting against it. “Big day tomorrow,” he says.

“A lot of big days,” Frenchie tells him. “Not only tomorrow.”

Lamplighter snorts, but he doesn’t meet Frenchie’s eyes. “People like you don’t live long.”

Frenchie sits on the floor opposite from him, even though there is a couch inside this room. It's an old rusty brown, a bit stained, but it's comfortable enough.

“It’s ok,” Frenchie deadpans. “I hear people like me are not worth much anyhow.”

Lamplighter’s eyes shift to something harder and angry. But he doesn’t respond, other than stretching out across the basement cement floor. He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the night.

***

“What the hell is all this?”

Frenchie returns after days of keeping watch on the senator to a basement in chaos. Butcher is crowing about some new star witness set to take the stand first in the Vought hearing. Hughie is walking M.M. through a story about breaking into Vought Tower to save Starlight. Starlight’s mama is present for some reason, leaning on a filthy basement wall with a look of horror on her face. From whatever she’s been through, or the basement itself, it’s hard to say.

The thing that catches Frenchie’s attention most is fucking Lamplighter. His left arm is mummy-bandaged from fingertips to shoulder.

Frenchie is so focused on the arm, he doesn’t even think about the other plot holes to this narrative. Lamplighter is no longer the senator’s star witness...but he’s still here, in their basement. He hasn’t left, on his own or forced. At times, he even inserts a gruff word or two into conversations as if his voice belongs.

To Frenchie’s question, Lamplighter shrugs with his good side. “I helped,” he says.

“ _No one_ told you to help like that,” Hughie protests. He’s overtaken by recounts of Starlight breaking out of her cell when the emergency fire alarms went off. Also, Black Noir is allergic to nuts? Of the tree, not anatomical, variety. It seems, for once, Frenchie found himself far away from the most lively of the action.

He steals looks at Lamplighter’s arm, even as chatter progresses to the newest plan for the hearing. Butcher recruited some big shot former insider at Vought. Someone with insider knowledge of how Homelander himself was made. His testimony trumps Lamplighter’s accounts from Sage Grove. Lamplighter will be called on later if more Vought accounts are necessary.

Lamplighter’s fingers never flex under the bandages. They stand bone-stiff, not looking real.

“Stop it,” Lamplighter tells him. They wind up next to each other, scooping whatever remains out of Chinese takeout bags. Lamplighter does so one-handed, cradling a fork and to-go container against his stomach.

“What did you do?” Frenchie hisses back. “You go back home to your tower and do this? What’s the point, huh?”

Lamplighter’s eyes turn angry, like when they slept on opposite ends of a floor. “What’s the point of any of this?” he mutters under his breath. “Do you really think this ends with the lot of you on top?”

Frenchie scowls and retreats with his food. Lamplighter doesn’t follow.

***

Later that afternoon, the brood crowds around the TV. It's turned to the news instead of Lamplighter’s shady collection of supe porn this time.

Frenchie watches heads explode seated on the floor next to Lamplighter. Hughie, Starlight, and Starlight’s mama share the couch behind them. M.M. and Butcher hover in the back. A big bowl of popcorn goes uneaten in Frenchie’s lap.

The couch breaks out in startled gasps and shouts of horror. It takes far too long for the stunned network to cut to a “Technical Difficulties” screen. Frenchie's old tension returns, seizing his body and turning his shoulders to knots. It doesn’t matter that Lamplighter is next to him, Frenchie’s entire body feels cold.

At his side, Lamplighter’s face never changes. When Dr. Vogelbaum’s head pops off his neck, he lowers his eyes and stares at his wrapped, useless hand.

***

The night turns cold in the back alley above their pawn shop basement. It’s far from the city lights, not even the sidewalk lamps from around the corner able to reach into the shaded vein. Frenchie expects to be alone when he climbs the concrete steps and gulps a mouthful of cold air. He hears the scuttling of rats somewhere among an overflowing dumpster. Cigarette smoke hits his nose.

By the time he spots Lamplighter, the pack is already extended to him. Lamplighter leans against a brick wall, sweatshirt hood pulled over his head. He’s managed to balance the cigarette between his wrapped pointer and middle fingers. The tip is rosy, a curl of smoke fading into the dark.

Refusing the offer is easy; he can’t say he hasn’t indulged despite his past. But the last person Frenchie intends to take one from is _him_.

He leans on the wall too, a few feet of distance between them. The bricks are cold through his t-shirt. A smarter man would have worn a jacket, but after everything they just saw the chill feels good in his bones. It’s a reminder of still being alive, aching through his joints.

Lamplighter lifts his burned hand to his lips. Even in the shade, Frenchie sees his mouth curl around it. He hates himself for noticing. Hates that he can stand here without at least trying to shove his fist through Lamplighter's face.

They’re too far away for Frenchie to feel the warmth off Lamplighter’s skin. He hates that he knows this too.

“So, what now?” Frenchie’s nose scrunches as the scent of the smoke. His childhood is so deep that it’s rare for full scenes to flood his conscious thoughts anymore. But he does see his father for a moment, a quick flash of a cigarette butt marking his skin. “Maybe you’ll find the producer for your porno, huh? Work out a deal to star in the sequel.”

Lamplighter snorts. His eyes are on the slim stretch of sky between buildings. Not one single star. “I should have just done it,” he says.

Frenchie knows what he means immediately. He knew the second he saw the bandages around Lamplighter’s arm. “Coward,” he hisses. “Sure. You should have.”

“Yeah.” The word is aimed at the sky instead of Frenchie. As big of a prick as Lamplighter is, it surprises Frenchie that being called a coward doesn’t rile his temper. “They moved my statue. I always thought, if I had a chance, I’d do it in front of my statue. Where it all started.”

Frenchie scoffs. His goddamn statue. Even when it comes to the measure of his own life, Lamplighter is like the rest of them. Delusional. Self-absorbed. He may not be the animal Frenchie thought once, but he stopped being human a long time ago.

Frenchie turns for the concrete steps and the security of their shit hole basement.

“I wanted to know if you assholes could do it.” The admission makes Frenchie stop, back still to Lamplighter. He doesn’t need to look to picture Lamplighter’s words wafting off his lips in a breath of smoke. “I didn’t think you had a shot in hell. But I wanted to know.”

Frenchie glances back over his shoulder. Lamplighter’s eyes are on him, dark without the aid of streetlights. The glow of his cigarette shines across them. Ash drifts off the head and flits down to the pavement below.

Lamplighter looks like a villain in this light, as dangerous as Homelander himself. His lips are wet from a recent lick. Frenchie sees that too.

“So, you found out,” Frenchie says. “Now what?”

Lamplighter lifts his good shoulder. The white bandages around his hand look gray at night. “I don’t know,” he says. “Now what?”

His eyes are hard, focused on Frenchie, and the weight in them is too much. It makes his skin crawl and his blood warm. Like coke hitting his system, making his brain pulse with fake life.

“Now, you make good on everything you owe,” Frenchie tells him. “To Madam Mallory. To everyone. And to me.”

Frenchie doesn’t wait for an answer. His boots tap the steps as he jogs down. Somehow, even with electricity, the light isn’t much better when he returns to the basement. Things are static downstairs. Everyone is in a state of stillness except Butcher, pacing on the other end of the floor on the phone. With who, Frenchie can only guess. Mallory perhaps, or some other Plan Z now that Plans A through Y are totally fucked.

Frenchie sits on the couch and lets the shock wash over him. He doesn’t do or say anything. He doesn’t even remember thinking. Time must pass. The group in the room shrinks. Some turning in, others going one at a time for drinks, food, or fresh air.

Frenchie retires finally to wash his face and brush his teeth in their moldy bathroom.

When he enters his workshop room, Lamplighter is on his floor. He’s taken his sweatshirt off, using it as a cushion to prop himself against the wall. His muscle shirt shows the full extent of his bandaging. White crossing gauze scales from his fingertips to his shoulder. Lamplighter’s own damage completely removed the acid burn from Sage Grove. That scorch mark is just one of many under the layers of bandages coiled around his arm.

“I didn’t say you could stay here,” Frenchie tells him.

“You didn’t say I couldn’t,” Lamplighter answers. “Besides,” he shifts his sweatshirt to the floor and rests his head on top. "Less rats in here. And no Butcher. Dude's nuts.”

Frenchie huffs.

He helps himself to the other side of the floor. Frenchie has a blanket stashed here and a lumpy but actual pillow. They’re both clean, it’s all that matters to him. He spreads out opposite from Lamplighter on the floor. Again, the perfectly fine couch goes untouched.

“Did it hurt?” Frenchie asks.

Lamplighter's mouth curls in a mock smile. “The hell do you think?” he grumbles.

Frenchie rolls his eyes upward. There are a few pen marks among the white plaster ceiling. They don’t make out legible words.

“Guess it’s good, though.” A glance finds Lamplighter’s eyes closed. “I should know. What it feels like, I mean.”

Some unnamed thing clenches in Frenchie's chest. “Oui,” Frenchie says, quiet and unsteady. “It is good.”

His mind turns to his father and circles of cigarette burns on his skin. To Mallory. To those two kids screaming as they burned alive. To the inexplicable thrill that went through Frenchie when Lamplighter aimed his lighter. To the thought that, finally, it would be over - but it wasn’t.

Lamplighter nods. His eyes stay closed.

Frenchie's don't, though. He stays watching until the early hours. He doesn’t let Lamplighter out of his sights. Only, this time, he can’t say he does his job for all the right reasons.


End file.
